Philipp Lenssen, one of the writers at Google Blogoscoped, has set up a really neat experiment:

Iâ€™ve set up a small idea at MutatingPictures.com. Thereâ€™s a pool of 1,000 random, symmetric pictures, displayed one at a time. For every picture you answer the question, â€œHow much does this look like a face?â€ (things other than faces may come in the future). Then, the higher your rating from 0-10, the more offspring the picture produces (a rating of 6 for instance will replace and â€œkillâ€ 6 other random pics among the population). Each of the offspring pictures is slightly mutated by shifting around some of the polygons that make up the black-and-white pictures.

The site hasn't even been up for a day, and it is obvious that the pictures are really beginning to look like faces (I selected the one above at random), particularly when compared with some of the initial random images.

Jesus and heavy Metal aside, the symmetry of the image helps to create the image of the face. You just need two eyes and one mouth for a picture to appear in your mind.

As for Jesus and the samurais, we are used to seeing the face of Jesus downcast, with the crown of thorns. Nobody thinks "baby Jesus" or "Jesus healing the sick", looking at this picture. This kinda reminds me of Jesus as a Transformer.